James Barker

The death of Joseph Stalin’s son Yakov Dzhugashvili in a German concentration camp 80 years ago was kept a secret for decades.

What the Easter 1920 riots in Jerusalem revealed about British rule in Palestine.

James Barker describes the impact of an SOE mission in wartime Greece 70 years ago this month to demolish the Gorgopotamos railway bridge.

Suggestions that the European Union should have control over Greece’s budget in order to curb its debt crisis have caused a fierce reaction from Athens. James Barker explores a parallel situation in 19th-century Egypt.

With a solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians as far away as ever, James Barker looks back to Britain’s occupation of the region and the efforts made by the future Viscount Montgomery to impose peace on its warring peoples.

James Barker reveals how parsimony and muddle in Whitehall in the first years of the British Mandate in Palestine almost led to disaster in August 1929.

The bombing of the King David Hotel – the British headquarters in Mandatory Palestine – killed 91. What role did terrorism play in the birth of the state of Israel?

James Barker on ‘Bomber’ Harris, the RAF’s wartime bombing campaign of Germany, and propaganda.